that doesnt sound right... let me rephrase... so i am using recostructor for remastering from the Mint XFCE iso... and i'm testing with virtualbox. Mint XFCE works fine in virtualbox but the created isos give me kernel panic errors... 2 out of 2 so far... any suggestions?

i will try to use a cd-rw to test ... but i've been too occupied the past 2 days yo do anything... i will make some time later today to add in what you guys have suggested earlier... and give reconstructor another shot...

about fluxmint-desktop.deb ... are you using checkinstall to make it? I just cannot figure out how to define dependencies with that. so far i'm handling the default desktop settings by adding the files to /etc/skel.. its working fine except for the ~/.fluxbox/startup settings which are present but not applied when a new user is created. which puzzles me... i have a few files i would like to include in the .deb... which i will send to you later...

video thumbnails... they are not a necessity IMO but i'll leave that to majority vote... i have mplayer already included in the default package set so it wouldn't be a big deal.

ok i'm getting late for work... c ya!

p.s. would you guys like a GUI dialog for shutdown/reboot/logout ?? a friend has writen a script which i can send to you to add in fluxmint-desktop... presently i have it setup so you get a prompt for an admin password using...

shane wrote:that doesnt sound right... let me rephrase... so i am using recostructor for remastering from the Mint XFCE iso... and i'm testing with virtualbox. Mint XFCE works fine in virtualbox but the created isos give me kernel panic errors... 2 out of 2 so far... any suggestions?

i will try to use a cd-rw to test ... but i've been too occupied the past 2 days yo do anything... i will make some time later today to add in what you guys have suggested earlier... and give reconstructor another shot...

about fluxmint-desktop.deb ... are you using checkinstall to make it? I just cannot figure out how to define dependencies with that. so far i'm handling the default desktop settings by adding the files to /etc/skel.. its working fine except for the ~/.fluxbox/startup settings which are present but not applied when a new user is created. which puzzles me... i have a few files i would like to include in the .deb... which i will send to you later...

video thumbnails... they are not a necessity IMO but i'll leave that to majority vote... i have mplayer already included in the default package set so it wouldn't be a big deal.

ok i'm getting late for work... c ya!

I have now Idea what Reconstructor could be doing to cause kernel panic errors.
Did you use the script to remove the livecd installed items?
What have you remove form the ISO?

For the fluxmint-default-settings I don't use checkinstall to make it.
Also fluxmint-default-settings would add the settings for new users.(will test)
Just email me everything.

shane wrote:that doesnt sound right... let me rephrase... so i am using recostructor for remastering from the Mint XFCE iso... and i'm testing with virtualbox. Mint XFCE works fine in virtualbox but the created isos give me kernel panic errors... 2 out of 2 so far... any suggestions?

I just thought of this, but did you try to install the new kernel?
If you did you will have to start over.

sorry, but i have been on the bad end of unreplied posts... but i just wanted to put my head down and figure out the whole process of spinning a Live/Install CD... which I can say (with big sigh of relief) that I have done. So far I have made 2 working iso images so I think it is time we start fine-tuning and testing!

about a .deb to handle default config files for FB... I have included these files in the /etc/skel folder so that when a new user is created the config files are copied into your new ~/ folder. from that point you may edit them as you wish... If the .deb can ensure that some kind of config file is present without overwriting the current ones, that would be a big bonus. Sorry merlwiz for not sending these files to you yet... as I said earlier.. I just wanted to make sure I had everything (in my head and) in place to start making test iso-s first.

Desktop icons: currently I do not have desktop icons. If people really want them, I will add them with pleasure. I personally don't like desktop icons

the Fluxbox startup script: ATM I have pidgin, conky and tilda starting up. These are my own defaults... they can be changed in the final version. I chose conky because it gives basic system info right on the desktop and is very lean. tilda is my favorite terminal program and I have it docked at the top center of the screen without decorations and skipped on the taskbar. tilda is easily toggled in and out of view using the F1 key. this can also be changed. the convenience of having a terminal instantly available at the stroke of a key is priceless. oh and it is lean on resources too. pidgin... just because

xcompmgr: i haven't included this because from my experience i found that it slows down the whole GUI which is kind of contrary to what FB is all about ie. lean and fast. it also doesn't play well with Firefox on my system.... scrolling in FF becomes a pain. then again, maybe its just my system... SiS integrated graphic card with shared memory... in short terrible. I can include it if demand is there... bearing in mind that by using FB we are sacrificing Compiz-fusion.

then... Gutsy is coming out today... and I would like to use that for the final version... I wonder if mint's custom tools will work well in Gutsy. Otherwise,we'll base it off Cassandra XFCE with Celena's artwork. Gutsy detects and installs my wireless card correctly... so i'm really leaning that way

The Exit menu: a friend of mine has written a script providing a GUI interface to handle the Exit/Shutdown dialog. However, he wrote this for his own March Linux (Arch with Fluxbox) and doesn't work on Ubuntu based distros... yet. He has some other fantastic Fluxbox projects in the mill. Hopefully, we can add them later on. ATM I have it running xterm and executing the appropriate command with sudo. This means it asks you for your user password... I think this is ok as it gives you some kind of dialog instead of just shutting down... which may happen with an accidental click.

The Test CD: I would like to get the test CD to anyone who is interested but I do not have a way to host it. I was thinking of using a free file hosting service like http://webfilehosting.com/. If anyone has any better ideas please let me know.

Since interest is picking up on Mint Fluxbox... and I really appreciate that you have shown interest and more than that, have helped me a great deal... I think we should give some kind of definition and direction to this branch of Linux Mint. This is just a small draft and you are most welcome to add to it.

1. Mint Fluxbox should be light and fast. It should be able to run on older hardware allowing people with weak to mediocre machines to enjoy the awesomeness of Linux Mint.

2. Mint Fluxbox should be easy to use. Wherever possible we should provide comprehensive GUI tools catering for both new and veteran users. This is where our base of Linux Mint is irreplaceable.

3. Mint Fluxbox should not only play the part, it should look the part. Linux Mint is famous for looking slick and totally awesome... more so with Celena. Mint Fluxbox should be the hottest thing to ever hit a Pentium II processor! without burning it to smitherines of course

If you feel we could add more to this creed please make yourself heard!

To end this gargantuan post... a screenie of Mint Fluxbox's current state. Nothing is final here... so it can only get better

I have been hammering away at getting the iso working as i wanted but I have been having problems with the icon themes and the startup applications in fluxbox. neither are being picked up and i just can't figure out why.

Anyway, while i have a go at these problems i thought some of you might like to test it for me and give me suggestions. so here it is... the first test iso for Linux Mint Fluxbox edition.

Well that's weird.
If you delete the .fluxbox folder and logout and back in the startup file works.
Maybe you will have to use a timed login instead of auto.
I will have a look.
Also it will need to have a Livecd menu and an installed menu.(to be able to install to the hard drive.)
I will add a check for os-prober and make it use then live cd menu if present.
I will also look into the icon problem.

ok, here is the problem i am facing. the icon themes which i set in ~/.gtkrc-2.0-mine are not implemented in the live cd. however, after installing to a virtual machine it is. which is not such a bad thing since you only use a live cd rarely.

but the startup script... the use of this file (~/.fluxbox/startup) is defined in the ~/.fluxbox/init file. commenting out the line defining this disables the startup script completely. however, using this startup script makes two instances of whatever is in it to open. I suppose this has something to do with how Ubuntu handles the fluxbox x session. Ubuntu AFAIK starts fluxbox using startfluxbox and not just fluxbox and startfluxbox is supposed to take care of the startup script as well. now the startup script at the end, has a line to start fluxbox... which is where i think the problem lies... in that startfluxbox starts up all the apps defined in the startup script and then starts fluxbox which does the same... hence the 2 instances. but commenting out the line that starts fluxbox in the startup script gives a case where fluxbox does not start at all! so its kind of a 'double or nothing' situation. i hope i'm making sense. Strangely enough the exact settings on my installed system (on which this iso is modelled after) works perfectly!

deleting the ~/.fluxbox folder and logging back in as you said solved the problem with the startup script getting run... even if it does run it twice. The /etc/skel/.fluxbox folder is still present which might be the culprit. (They are duplicate files though).

another problem i have found is that I upgraded the kernel to the latest in the Feisty repos but trying to boot an installed system with this kernel gives a kernel panic error. Booting with the older kernel works fine.

merlwiz... you may have guessed that i am at the fringes of my Linux knowledge when it comes to remastering iso-s so any advice, tips and tricks is most welcome how has the Live CD worked for you?

I am really impressed by how much you have achieved in the week that I have been away. I have had a lot of posts to catch up on and digest, but it looks like you are doing just fine.

I intend to download and test your ISO, but it might not be until next week as I am working on a final release of my own project.

Certainly, using the Mint GTK theme, FluxMint is going to look cool - that is guaranteed .

Out of interest Mandriva/PCLinuxOS uses the /etc/skel system for ensuring new user accounts have the correct config files, but since they don't use the sudo system but have separate root and user accounts, there isn't a problem with double-launching of any of the files contained therein.

It looks from your posts that the system of creating live CDs using an Ubuntu base is quite different to a Mandriva/RPM base, so I am glad that you took up this challenge Shane with Merlwiz's support .

Just in response to your comments about how Mint Fluxbox should be light and fast. Personally I think Open Office goes against this premise. I know that the likes of AbiWord and Gnumeric do not have the same functionality and are not to everyone's taste, but they do run a lot faster on older hardware and are a lot less bloated. It's not really a criticism, more of an observation, but you must go with whatever selection of applications best matches the Mint Linux experience.

thanks for the flattering words it has been like a crash course on a few different aspects of Linux... hehe. Right now merlwiz's is doing some work on the iso so i'm on a bit of a break... but who knows we might see release sooner than I anticipated

About OpenOffice.org... I was also thinking about that... I just downloaded xubuntu gutsy... and that's what they are using. so you might have a point.

@merlwiz: what do you think about OO vs Abiword+Gnumeric? If I remember correctly you went through the same discussion with Mint XFCE, right?

lets do some tests... i am doing this on abt the same system that is on the iso. Installing Abiword+Gnumeric now, 10.8MB to be downloaded and 55.7MB to be used.

Well I didn't see that you had installed the latest kernel so I rebased it off of Celena XFCE CE.
I will upload the iso tonight.
I still don't have the startup working and will download fluxbuntu to see how they did it.
That is the only problem currently.
I will post the link as soon as I am done uploading.
Current size is about 645MBs.
I decided on openoffice because it works with MS docs.
I have change a few things and added the install item to the menu to install it.
The install in the menu is not there once it's on the hard drive.

I don't have time to test the install, but it should work just like before.
I will start uploading in less than an hour.

Ok I found a workaround that works.
If you wait until tomorrow I will have the new fluxmint-default-settings done.
If you want I can make a new iso and upload it.
I don't have a bandwidth cap so it doesn't matter to me.
Also I'm not sure about conky autostarting.
I would rather not have it autostart.

Ok it's 3:34am so it should be done today.

Update:
stopped conky from autostarting.
New gmd Clena theme for fluxbox.
Apps now autostart on livecd.
Going to upload new iso after post.

Interesting tests. It would be important for people running older hardware. Abiword has come on a lot since I last used it and there are numerous plugins to support .doc and .odt, plus GIMP integration, spell checker via aspell, aiksaurus and gnome chart integration... It can be made to look a lot better if you tweak the default gnome icon theme.

Gnumeric - well I don't use spreadsheets very often, but seemingly it will perform most of the basic tasks.

That's why for my own series I am releasing a tiny version with just abiword, a midi version with abiword, gnumeric and gimp and a full version with open office.

Anyway, it's up to you, just wanted to make the point really.

I'll wait for Merlwiz's latest ISO before test driving Linux Mint Fluxbox - by the way is that what you intend to call it? I kinda liked the idea of Flint Linux (geddit?). I was thinking of a customized mint theme with maybe a stone age flint axe or something as the main emblem:

Ok it died while uploading.
I am going to try again.
Also it's up to shane what it's called.
I just fixed the kernel problem and the settings problem.
Now it has all the artwork from Celena.
I will start uploading after this post.

@merlwiz... maybe you could try another file hosting service... i've spent most of today trying to download the first iso you uploaded... and it was crawling along at around 7kB/s... when everything else went at +300kB/s... was it the same with iso I uploaded?

Concerning OO... I would like to go with functionality and real world usability rather than saving memory and possibly not being able to do the job. Giving up OO could then also bring up a discussion of Firefox vs Dillo or Exaile vs XMMS... I prefer the possibility of doing everything that can be done.

As for the name... I would like to maintain a close tie to Linux Mint since this project uses a lot of the Mint tools. This is why I would like it if we kept the word Mint in our name. Clem mentioned in this post that he would prefer if community editions did not use the Linux Mint 'something' for their naming... Spearmint seems to have been taken by the XFCE edition... I was thinking of Peppermint! the far-fetched rationing being pepper > hot > fast

Thanks for all the help merlwiz! I hope the download works better this time...

Last edited by shane on Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.